Chapter Twenty-two 
BRITISH GUIANA (II) 
S a result of my expedition to Kenya, the Zoo was by now 
well stocked with a wide range of East African animals, but 
wild-life from tropical America was poorly represented. With the 
idea of remedying this defect it was agreed, in February, 1947, to 
send me to British Guiana. 
The snowy spell of that season had already lasted three weeks 
when I boarded the train for Liverpool, consoled by the thought 
that in less than a fortnight I would be in tropical seas. 
Liverpool, no doubt, is the center of the universe to those born 
and bred there, but to a visitor who has to while away a day when 
the city is under snow, there is little to recommend the place. So 
utterly dejected was I by the chill of the arctic wind and by an 
attack of sciatica, that I visited one of the leading hotels twice 
within a few hours to take a hot bath in the hope of thawing out. 
The small Booker Line boat fought its way for days against a 
strong southwesterly wind and the Atlantic swell, but one morn- 
ing we awoke to see calm waters glistening in the sunshine. The 
contrast was wonderful, and my sciatica disappeared under the 
magic influence of the sun’s rays. 
Georgetown, the principal port and capital of British Guiana, 
had changed but little since my visit seventeen years previously. 
On the whole, the largely colored population seemed to take life 
in a leisurely happy-go-lucky manner, though it was noticeable 
that there was a distinct anti-white attitude on the part of a certain 
section of the community, fostered largely by the local press, 
which employed much of its space harping on the color-bar—not 
in Guiana, but in England. 
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